


Ante Mortem

by Paranormal_Shitness



Series: The Common Name Riddle [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 13 YO Girl Angst, Character Death, Date Rape Maybe, Fanart, Gay Chasing, Horror, Hypnotism, M/M, Questionable Uses Of The Imperius Curse, Sickly Inbred Purebloods, Tiny Evil Gays, Tom is creepy and no one notices, bullshit Mindgames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 11:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14692823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paranormal_Shitness/pseuds/Paranormal_Shitness
Summary: Myrtle turned on her heel instantly and ran back out the way she’d come. Through the entrance hall, up the marble staircase and into the toilet on the second floor where she locked herself securely in her favorite crying spot: the stall very furthest from the door.She’d only been in there about a minute when the door opened again. She pulled her feet up onto the toilet, expecting it to be Olive come looking to torment her more, but whoever it was didn’t come to her stall.





	Ante Mortem

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been drawing a bit to correspond with this piece and I’ll be uploading images into the text as I finish them hope you enjoy

Sometimes, Myrtle Elizabeth Warren saw the other strange Ravenclaws spending time with the Slytherins. And how fancy, she thought it, to be invited in amongst such pretty folk. 

That was something she knew surely would never happen for her. Just as she was not accepted by the Hufflepuffs because she was too gloomy or the Gryffindors because she was too sensitive. The Slytherins would never accept her because she was too dumpy. 

A great, pimply, four eyed lump like her. It wouldn’t matter if she learned an interesting skill like Sera Sacharria the year ahead of her, who often translated old texts for them to read. They would never allow themselves to look at Myrtle’s face all day if they didn’t have to. 

She didn’t have to wonder about that. Sera had told her herself when she’d asked about the Slytherin parties she went to.

Sera was a cold girl with no loyalties to anything. Not unpopular in Ravenclaw because she was stupid or ugly but because she was so high on her horse that she was completely detestable. She had turned her naturally snubbed nose up at Myrtle and laughed.

‘Imagine you,’ said Sera. ‘Sitting between Riddle and Malfoy. Somehow an uglier woman than either of them.’

And it was true. 

Even the Slytherin boys were beautiful. She tried not to look at them when they passed her in hallways because she was never sure if she was jealous of their looks or attracted to them. Only a few of them fell below muster to catch female attention, and of those few most had money to make up for their lacking looks. Girls still pined for them.

Riddle and Malfoy were some of the prettiest in the bunch, and the most popular.

Riddle was a very nice boy. A prefect. He was kind to people from all houses and often tutored muggleborn students who fell behind because he had gone through the same difficulty studying himself living at the orphanage where he spent his summers. He’d spoken to her once in the great hall. While he was leaving, just as she arrived late to breakfast and he’d bumped into her. Flat into her face as if he hadn’t even known she existed. Their books had scattered all over the floor and in the flurry to pick them up he’d said exactly six words to her: ‘You’ve got to be more careful,’ in a tone of voice that sounded so sincerely concerned for her wellbeing she didn’t think about how one of the items he’d dropped was a catalogue of antique French books bound in human flesh.

Malfoy, on the other hand, was quite a snappish boy. He was known to take ill regularly and spend long weeks in the hospital wing. On days that he did feel well enough to attend classes normally, he was known for a nasty temper and soft toned admonishions that left their recipients reeling for weeks.

Riddle was dark where Malfoy was light. His brown eyes and black hair stark against Malfoy’s blonde and blue. Handsome where Malfoy was beautiful. With hard cheekbones and a good chin, hair nicely cropped while Malfoy with his round cheeks and delicate brow could have passed for a woman out of the corner of one’s eye. Or maybe right in front of you, if he wore the right clothes.

Between the two of them, through charm and through money, they controlled their own little gangs within the house. But despite their supposed competition, Myrtle had spied on the two of them sitting side by side quite intimately beneath the dappled shade of branches by the edge of the lake.

She’d actually made quite the habit of trying to catch them at it. Often skulking around the high windows of the castle on floors where no classes were held as she dodged arithmancy lessons. Riddle and Malfoy were fifth years and had a free study period then, so when the weather was right (slightly overcast like it was now) they made their way across the lawn under the protection of a thick, lavish parasol Malfoy held. It was decorated with painted silk and lace, depicting white peacocks grazing on a manicured lawn that would take flight or fan their tails if he spun the handle round in his hands.

Riddle always wore sunglasses outside. She suspected they were very nicely made when she had a rare occasion to see them up close. They didn’t seem to be glass so much as thin slices of obsidian framed in fine metal, likely silver. Considering Riddle’s status as an orphan and a pauper, she wondered if maybe Malfoy had bought them as a gift.

They never did anything one might call strange as they sat by the lake.

Today they set out a dark blanket on the grass and dirt, and Riddle pulled a book from his pocket.

Myrtle waited with her hands pressed to the glass, hoping this time, that perhaps maybe they would be tempted, but they never strayed past the contact one might see between close friends. Despite the distinct air their ministrations gave, it remained strictly platonic, far on the safe side of the line designating social impropriety. Riddle leaned into Malfoy’s lap with the book and began to read aloud, lips stretching silently around words she couldn’t hear until Malfoy bowed over him, eclipsing any view of his face behind a curtain of long, pale blonde hair.

How Myrtle wished to know what they talked about. Know what they were reading together so intimately, but she hadn’t the courage to go down and hide behind the tree trunks. If she did she’d be in Gryffindor, and maybe then she might be happy, because those happy people would be forced to pay her mind if she was their own.

Riddle’s hand trailed up Malfoy’s arm. Sunlight skittered where it could across their intertwined forms as if desperate to touch them even as they hid from it so plainly. She felt a kinship with it, eyes ever seeking some secret concealed behind cloth facades of distance that hung between them like gauzy ectoplasm. Like the the tendrils of Spanish moss on the trees. 

They laughed together, Malfoy throwing his head back so his hair whipped over his face in a dazzling arc, Riddle curling in on himself in his amusement. He was exclaiming something emphatically, pointing at the book. 

Must have been a funny joke, Myrtle thought, hoping against hope that she could someday laugh like that with someone. With them maybe, oh wouldn’t that be a dream.

‘Something interesting out on the lawn today, Myrtle?’ a voice said suddenly, shaking her out of her trance.

She hopped back from the window on instinct, shoes sliding across the stone floor with a slight hiss to find Professor Dumbledore the transfiguration teacher, looking at her curiously from behind his half moon spectacles.

‘Oh,’ she said hurriedly. ‘No! Nothing special, Professor-just-‘

But Professor Dumbledore had already joined her at the window and pressed his long, crooked nose to it curiously.

‘Ah,’ he said warmly. ‘Young Mr Malfoy and young Mr Riddle out for a picknick on their free period. How friendly of them.’

‘Yes,’ Myrtle said hurriedly. She was still standing several feet back from the window, nervous to know what the Professor might think of her spying. She clenched and unclenched her hands rapidly, feeling very much as though she’d loose house points or get detention, and very much like she might like to cry but trying desperately not to.

Dumbledore’s eyes narrowed for a split second before his smile was firmly back in place. ‘So Good to see Riddle make a close friend. He has always been very lonely,’ he said, but his tone seemed slightly strange to her. 

Myrtle was used to hearing people say one thing while meaning another because so many of her classmates made fun of her. Hearing that in a teacher’s voice struck a chord of deep fear in her no matter how slight it was. 

‘I thought he had a lot of friends, Professor,’ said Myrtle plainly.

‘Oh, yes, quite true,’ said Dumbledore still peering keenly at the two figures.

Myrtle felt a deep desire to run and be away from here so she couldn’t be punished for this but she couldn’t move.

‘You’ve taken a liking to young Mr Riddle, haven’t you, Myrtle?’ asked Dumbledore with that same hidden disdain in his voice.

Tears welled up in the corners of Myrtles eyes.

‘M-maybe,’ she gasped. ‘Have you c-c-come to tease me about it?’

Dumbledore turned awestruck to look at her but before he could meet her eyes she ran off down the corridor, only realizing once she’d gotten back to her dormitory that the Professor hadn’t even seemed to care she’d been shirking class.

*

 

Myrtle didn’t see either of them for quite some time after that as she’d stopped looking. She put her head back into her books and tried to focus on not being bothered by teasing, but she was woefully under adapted for this, and it seemed that within a week she’d lost all of her resolve.

She resorted to daydreaming during her classes and even her study time. Imagining herself as some other girl in some other place. Rich and born beautiful to magical parents. 

One day during self study after classes in the library, as she was daydreaming of being a princess, she heard a funny sort of laughter from behind a bookshelf where no one was really supposed to go. It was strange enough a sound that it shook her out of her own head. She looked curiously at the bookshelf.

Behind it, she knew, was the restricted section. Perhaps the laughter had just been one of those creepy old books. She’d heard some of them could talk so why couldn’t they laugh, and considering she was the only person who wanted to be alone enough to come to this corner of the library it seemed unlikely to be anything but a creepy old book.

She was just trying to regain her train of thought, reconjure the image of the Prince Charming she’d been dreaming up for herself, when she heard a very soft voice say, ‘But if you decipher it using Luchancian’s translation notes this word here doesn’t mean swallow it means-‘ there was the scribble of a quill and then more laughter.

‘Somehow that’s worse,’ another voice, this one harsh and dark sounding, whispered.

Cautiously, so as not to be seen, Myrtle reached up to a shelf above where she sat on the floor and began to rearrange the books.

‘Oh all of this sounds dreadfully unpleasant,’ the first voice was whispering.

‘You say that,’ teased the second. Myrtle heard a page turn as she pressed some books to the side and they came into view.

Malfoy was standing behind a desk where Riddle sat, leaning over his shoulder. Even like this, with their backs turned to her, something about their proximity seemed intimate. The brace of Malfoy’s hand on Riddle’s shoulder where his fingers curled delicately. 

And then she saw it: Riddle’s hand snaked up, around Malfoy’s waist, and down again so that his fingers trailed along the outside of a thigh, arm wrapped around the other boy’s backside to hold him close. 

‘But you say a lot of things,’ said Riddle, as Malfoy, instead of being upset by the improprietous gesture, leaned into him.

Myrtle had to stifle a gasp.

Riddle jumped, cast his eyes around surreptitiously and sighed. ‘Damn books. Always make me feel like someone’s watching.’

Malfoy hummed an agreement. ‘You’ll want to finish that translation quickly then, won’t you?’ He asked.

Riddle turned to him with a smile unlike any smile Myrtle had ever seen on his face before. Something half nasty twisting his handsome features so they seemed predatory. ‘Oh really now, Roxy, do you think this is the sort of audience to spoil a show?’ He asked.

Myrtle wasn’t exactly sure how to interpret what she saw next. Riddle tightened his grip on Malfoy’s waist and his head bowed forward, face hidden in the fabric of the other boy’s robes, just around his groin.

Malfoy made a sort of choking noise in the back of his throat, and Myrtle shrieked. Then, panicking, she grabbed her book and bag off the floor and dashed as fast as she could around the bookcases out of the library.

*

They hadn’t seen her, she told herself. They couldn’t have seen her. She was gone before they looked. 

But when she saw Riddle in the corridor outside her potions class next day as she ran away from Olive Hornby, the look on his face may have implied he had. She refused to think about it.

Olive and the rest of the girls in her year seemed to have picked up on her heightened anxiety and were more than happy to help.

‘Is it because Hubert Grimmsy doesn’t like a girl who can’t see?’ Olive continued teasing after her as she hurried away from Riddle. 

Riddle simpered almost imperceptibly. 

Hubert Grimmsy was the cutest boy in their Ravenclaw class, but even he was no bright jewel compared to the Slytherin boys. Still, somehow during one of the few conversations the other girls had ever invited her into, Myrtle had felt pressured to admit a crush on him that she didn’t have. And so his name had become a mocking staple in the teasing she endured,

‘No one would ever want to marry an ugly, blind freak like you,’ said Olive.

‘Oi,’ Myrtle stopped dead in her tracks and turned to see Riddle, standing out from the line of Slytherins boys. ‘Why are you talking to your own housemate like that?’ He asked.

‘What?’ asked Olive Hornby.

‘I said why don’t you just leave her alone?’ said Riddle.

Olive opened her mouth to say something in her own defense but then thought better of it and turned to continue marching up the hallway.

‘Are you alright?’ asked Riddle, turning his attention to Myrtle and the tears in her eyes.

Myrtle felt her heart soar for a moment, and then plummet instantly back down when a few of the Slytherin boys behind him whispered surreptitiously and she realized they were talking about her.

The tears in her eyes welled up again and she found herself turning to run past Olive Hornby and the other girls.

She missed the sound of Riddle swearing under the clopping of her shoes.

*

Malfoy was sent back to the hospital wing not long after. And Riddle canceled his tutoring sessions just as Myrtle was thinking that she might sign up herself. Sure, the other boys had laughed about her behind him, but Riddle had only been trying to help. He was so kind even after she’d broken his trust all she wanted to do was be near him. 

But as soon as she reached to take it, her opportunity dried up. It seemed she would never meet another soul to spend time with in her miserable life.

Only, Riddle did seem to start popping up where she spent time. And often, he seemed to be watching her.

What this could have meant, Myrtle had no idea, but she couldn’t help imagining that somehow he’d fallen for her, and intended to whisk her away from all the bullying she endured into the safety of his group. It was such a nice fantasy that once she’d had it it became one of her favorites and she got lost in it regularly. Almost any time she saw his face, and even many times she didn’t. It had gotten so bad that when he finally did approach her, she didn’t notice it until he was sitting right next to her speaking.

‘You’re Myrtle right?’ he asked. ‘Myrtle Warren?’

Myrtle startled, looking at him with wide eyes. ‘Oh! Yes-I ’ she said and then stopped feeling very warm in the face despite the weather around them. ‘Sorry.’

‘No, no, don’t be,’ said Riddle kindly. 

‘Well, er, Why did you want to know?’ she asked.

‘Well,’ Riddle said, looking a bit sheepish suddenly. ‘I’ve seen you around some time now and I can’t help noticing-‘ (Myrtle’s heart was racing, her breath seemed to catch in her throat. Was he going to call her beautiful or tragic? Maybe confess his love?) ‘-that you never seem to be spending time with anyone.’

Myrtle felt as though she’d been punched in the gut. Crestfallen, she sighed. ‘Well I’m afraid that’s because no one likes me.’

Riddle tutted. ‘Oh come now. You can’t be right about that. Surely there must be someone. You have parents right? You get along with them don’t you? They care.’

‘Oh well [i]everyone[\i] has parents who care,’ said Myrtle. And then she instantly wished she handn’t because Riddle had gone very white faced indeed. ‘I mean- most people-it’s just-I-I-I can’t help feeling they have to.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Riddle said, tone only a little put out by her thoughtlessness. ‘It makes sense that it wouldn’t be enough, right?’

‘Now I sound ungrateful,’ Myrtle whined. 

‘Nonsense.’

‘It’s not that I don’t love them, it’s just I can’t help feel they don’t understand me at all. You see, They’re both muggles and so it’s not like they know even half of the things I’m talking about most of the time.’

Riddle nodded, frowning quite seriously at the icy grass by their feet. ‘I know how you mean. It’s true I don’t have parents, but we’re cared for by nuns at the orphanage, and none of them understand a lick about magic so I have to lie all the time.’

‘That sounds dreadful,’ Myrtle admitted.

‘It’s not so bad,’ Riddle told her.

‘But you must be so lonely,’ she said, remembering Dumbledore’s words.

‘Only during the summers. It’s not easy to go lonely at Hogwarts,’ he assured her. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Professor Slughorn is throwing a party for his Slug Club next week and I’m allowed to invite whoever I like. I was wondering if you’d come.’

‘If I?’ Gasped Myrtle. ‘If [i]I[\i] would come?’

‘Yes,’ said Riddle confidently.

‘Oh,’ Myrtle said, trying to hold back tears again. ‘Oh of course!’

*

It was that night that the first attack happened and Marget Borden ended up petrified in the hospital wing. 

*

By the time that the party rolled around, two people had fallen gravely ill and ended up in the Hospital wing. Both were muggleborn but she didn’t think about it. She didn’t think about much that week except the upcoming party.

At first she’d fretted endlessly over having nothing to wear to a party, but at some point Tom had caught her looking nervous and asked her her mind. Once she explained he promised he’d see to everything and that night, she’d come back to her bed to find a dazzling blue dress in a box at it’s foot. 

It fit perfectly. The other girls in her year gawked as she tried it on. And then of course Olive had had to ruin it all by saying, ‘oh but it’ll never go with those glasses.’

Myrtle had taken the dress off quickly, and stuffed it back into the box. After that she didn’t even dare looking at it when the other girls were around but it was never far from her mind.

Next day, when she thanked Tom, he smiled at her and told her not to mention it. He was definitely the man of her dreams. She didn’t even care how close he secretly was to Malfoy or that he was three years older than her. If he had asked, she would have married him on the spot. 

‘I thought it would look nice when I saw it in the catalog,’ he continued.

‘You,’ said Myrtle softly, ‘you don’t think it’ll clash with my glasses?’

‘Absolutely not,’ he told her.

And so she went to the party feeling like the princess she’d always wanted to be, clinging to his arm like a lifeline. His smile was politician perfect as someone from the daily prophet snapped picutres.

‘Do you think they’ll put us in the paper?’ she asked.

‘Probably not. But they always have someone photograph these silly little events in case anything like what happened two years ago happens again,’ he told her airily.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘Well a vam-‘ Riddle started only to be interrupted by a boy with dark hair and an uppercrust London accent who had to have been Orion Black.

‘So sorry to intrude, Riddle, but I was wondering who this is?’ he asked, pointing at Myrtle.

‘My date,’ Tom said flatly.

‘Oh surely then you’re up to something, old chap,’ Black said, eyeing Myrtle suspiciously.

Riddle’s eyes narrowed. ‘Being annoyed by you,’ he said.

Black nodded once, a stunned sort of look on his face then turned on a heel and marched away like a little toy soldier.

‘Forgive him,’ Riddle said to her softly out the side of his mouth, ‘his whole family’s like that I’m afraid. Constantly paranoid. He’s really only worried for you.’

‘Do you think so?’ Myrtle asked.

‘Well of course. I know Black quite well after all. I’ve been tutoring his young cousin, Alphard,’ said Riddle. ‘Quite fond of Alphard, he is.’

Myrtle had gotten distracted watching the society adults as they began to arrive by announcement into the room. 

Mrs. Agraneitte Malfoy was introduced to a flurry of applause, and seemed to rush up to them instantly, arms open.

‘Tom,’ she cried, pulling him into a hug. ‘Oh it’s so good to see you. Have you been to visit Abraxas recently?’

Tom offered her a warm smile as he pulled away. ‘It’s good to see you too, and I have been to visit him. Just yesterday in fact. He was appalled to have to miss the party, but the fact that he can manage even that is a blessing isn’t it?’

‘Yes, with recent letters I’ve been in such a state of worry I-‘ Mrs Malfoy had stopped suddenly, eyes sliding onto Myrtle. ‘Oh forgive my manners,’ she simpered. ‘Who is this?’

Myrtle wished she could shrink out of sight that very instant.

‘This is Myrtle Warren,’ said Tom promptly. ‘I’ve brought her tonight.’

Mrs Malfoy simpered again. ‘How charming that is of you, Tom. You’ve even dressed her in proper clothing. Ah I must get to mingling though. I’ve only a short time before I need to nip off to see my baby myself.’

‘I do hope to see you again before the night is out,’ said Tom, and Mrs Malfoy kissed his cheek before she was gone in a whirl of green and white chiffon.

‘I didn’t know you and Malfoy were close,’ said Myrtle softly.

Tom put his hand out and a house elf appeared beside him to fill it with a pair of drinks. ‘I wouldn’t say close, but he lets me stay at his home for Christmas and Easter breaks.’

‘That sounds lovely,’ said Myrtle as she accepted her glass.

The night seemed to blur together after that. They spoke to so many people so quickly, and she was introduced to so many names she’d never even heard before that within minutes the events of the party seemed to blend into nonsense.

When she woke up the next morning, tucked into her own dormitory bed, still wearing her dress complete with shoes and glasses, she couldn’t really remember a thing.

*

She didn’t see Tom for several days after that, and in that time another student was sent to the hospital wing frozen stiff and staring. 

Nerves were beginning to set about the school now and they were even beginning to get to Myrtle. Two muggleborn students petrified seemed it could be a coincidence . But three?

When she finally did see Tom he was beside Abraxas who seemed to be in good enough health to get about again, but certainly needed someone to shepherd him between classes, a task Tom seemed to be fully capable of appointing to any Slytherin regardless of interference with their own class schedules. 

He said nothing to her. He didn’t so much as look at her. So she held her breath as she walked past him to avoid crying.

When she got back her dormitory early that day, she slid the dress out from under the bed, opened its box and ripped it up into a thousand pieces the same way he’d ripped up her heart. Her classmates found her sobbing next to the embering ashes of the once prized possession when they finally returned for bed.

‘Did he admit you looked like a pig in it?’ Olive Hornby asked.

Myrtle only wailed louder, and couldn’t seem to stop throughout the entire night.

In the morning, she checked herself into the hospital wing to avoid classes only to find herself in a bed between a petrified Frederick Coppersaunch and Abraxas Malfoy himself.

‘Hello,’ he said to her as he noticed her staring.

‘I thought you were feeling better,’ said Myrtle.

‘Oh I was,’ said Abraxas, and then his attention drifted to the window and he said no more.

She had just settled in to read a romance about a pureblood falling for a muggleborn she had found in the fiction section of the library when he spoke again suddenly.

‘Shame about that after party,’ he said.

‘After party?’ she asked.

Abraxas nodded quietly, cool eyes fixed unwaveringly on the wall across from his bed. ‘Quite embarrassing for you I imagine. Is that why you’re playing ill?’

‘I’m not playing ill,’ Myrtle said instantly.

Abraxas shrugged, and seemed to loose interest again so she tried to focus on her book only to find she couldn’t because what he’d said made no sense to her at all.

‘What after party?’ she asked after several minutes of trying to wait him out.

‘The one after the Slug Club party,’ Abraxas told her. ‘Down in the common room. I wasn’t in attendance of course, as I was ill. I only just heard about it yesterday. Tom told me everything. Supposed maybe you’d accidentally sipped something too strong instead of one of the youth cocktails.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Myrtle.

‘Goodness you don’t even remember do you?’ Drawled Malfoy with a tone of superiority. ‘Oh my now that [i]is[\i] awkward.’

‘What is?’ Asked Myrtle, finding herself more panicked by the instant.

‘Oh I’m so sorry, dear, but I’m afraid half the school must know by now,’ said Abraxas.

‘Know what?’ demanded Myrtle.

Abraxas turned to her slowly with a wicked smirk in his eyes and took her in fully. ‘How you made a complete fool of yourself dear. Tom told me you wouldn’t stop jumping around shouting nasty words for about an hour, and then you piled all the books from the Slytherin library in front of the common room door to make a kind of platform so you could take your clothes off for everyone. They had to wrestle you back into that dress about four times.’

‘That’s not true!’ Myrtle shouted.

‘But that’s not even the half of it. They showed me the memories in a pensive and I suppose I laughed myself back into bad health,’ said Abraxas.

Myrtle felt the tears come, and tried to hold them back but it was no use.

‘That’s not true!’ she insisted through their falling. ‘I would never do something like that.’

‘Oh but don’t people do the silliest things when they’re drunk?’ asked Abraxas.

‘But I didn’t have anything to drink!’ insisted Myrtle.

Abraxas laughed at her, that same odd laugh she’d heard in the library, and she remembered Riddle pressing his face into the skirt of Malfoy’s robes.

‘Are you sure you didn’t, darling?’ he asked but she was too lost in the memory, lost in the feeling of humiliation and betrayal.

‘Well you lot aren’t the only ones with memories that might get someone in trouble!’ she shrieked.

Abraxas’ face fell instantly, suddenly seeming mask-like and lifeless.

‘Get out,’ he said softly. 

‘But,’ Myrtle started, still crying.

‘Get. Out.’ repeated Abraxas and she did.

*

She had just shown up late to lunch when Olive spotted her.

‘Moaning Myrtle’s misted her glasses!’ She cried across the hall. ‘Look at her crying so hard she can’t even see. Better watch out or she’ll run into you and get snot all down your robes!’

Myrtle turned on her heel instantly and ran back out the way she’d come. Through the entrance hall, up the marble staircase and into the toilet on the second floor where she locked herself securely in her favorite crying spot: the stall very furthest from the door.

She’d only been in there about a minute when the door opened again. She pulled her feet up onto the toilet, expecting it to be Olive come looking to torment her more, but whoever it was didn’t come to her stall.

Instead they turned on the tap in one of the sinks. Turned it off. Paced a few steps back and forth a moment, and then said something funny.

Made a sort of horrible hissing sound. Maybe speaking another language, she thought, but that wasn’t what bothered her. What bothered her was it had clearly been a boy’s voice. 

Quietly, shaking with betrayal and rage, she got to her feet and opened the stall door to tell him this was the girl’s toilet. 

She only got to see it a moment before the darkness came. 

Cold and unforgiving, it seemed to swallow her up, and whisk her away from the sight of a pair of massive glowing eyes but she couldn’t be sure as it was only a moment. A single moment and it was over.

She felt she floated there in the darkness for an eternity. Not feeling or seeing anything really. Simply born aloft on an endless sea of not anything in particular until suddenly there was a sensation, or the very ghost of one, and she came rushing back.

She blinked once up at the torches along the wall of the second floor girl’s toilet she had been in, then blinked again, and sat up.

She felt quite numb suddenly. Very numb. And there was the sound of water running. One of the sinks had been left on, and had overflown. It was flooding the floor, she noticed as she looked down at her legs, but she couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t feel anything.

That’s when she noticed the blood. It seemed to be coming from behind her so she turned around to look at the floor and found her own empty eyes staring back, stone cold, frozen. Transfixed. 

She was dead, she realized, scrambling suddenly back from her own corpse. She was dead. Not for any good reason, just suddenly, all at once. Dead. With no forewarning, no way to tell it would happen. It just had.

She put her hands over her ears and let out a long, sustained scream but no one came.

When she opened her eyes again her body was still there, staring up at the ceiling blankly.

She closed them again and willed it to be a dream but once more when she had mustered the courage to look, it was there.

Her own empty shell. Lying in the water on the floor, uniform soaked, and ripped open. Someone had carved something out of her stomach, and the blood was dripping slowly into the water, swirling in it, turning pink before it dried enough to go brown.

Again she screwed her eyes up closed and willed it away but she couldn’t. So she waited until someone came that could.

Only that never happened.


End file.
